unfinished entries

I'm tired of attempting to piece things together and sorting my thoughts by theme. There are so many files saved on my computer, of unfinished thoughts that never made it here for whatever reason. I kept them, thinking I might flesh them out into real entries sometime. Ending classes, realizing Steph is graduating, that we're going to be seniors--all of it makes me realize putting things off for later just means accumulation of things most likely to remain undone. I'd rather not settle for that.

Last week I experienced these few days of absolute euphoria. I was so consciously, ridiculously happy. It's mellowed into a general contentment, coupled with a vague notion of impending stress, but I think so much of it has stemmed from recognizing that things fall into place on their own. Yes, I still have to exert effort, I need and want to be engaged in the things that are happening to me, there will always be excruciating moments of anxiety and doubt and fear. But watching loose ends go their own way is sometimes so much more satisfying than trying to tie them together.

Unfinished Entry #1: Written sometime last spring, nearly a year ago.

I've wanted to talk and write about this for a really long time. When people ask me about certain decisions that I've made and am in the process of making, it's difficult to know exactly where to start. How can I compress all the factors into an articulate explanation, even into a conversation?

I can't pinpoint the exact moment in my life when I began to feel that the best and worst things about me were one and the same--that is, my sensitivity and introspection--but once I did, I've never stopped thinking it was true. I spend so much (too much) time thinking about who it is that I am and who it is that I want to be that it frustrates me when other people misunderstand these things. It is so simple to dismiss the judgments of others, when "others" comprise an anonymous category of people I don't really know or care about. But it's not about those people at all. It's about those most close to me in interaction but who are still somehow most distant from me in understanding. I've attributed so much complexity to myself and to people in general. When I find people to whom I reveal a significant part of that and in whom I search for the same, and then to realize that they overlook both sides of this interaction--it's one of the worst feelings I experience. Being misunderstood may be hip when you want to distinguish yourself from people for whom you have no feeling whatsoever, but it's horrible when you're trying to establish substantial friendships with people in whom you've invested time and emotion.

Last year, when I told Amy about leaving the pre-med track to devote myself entirely to literature, she compared me to Felicity, who apparently abandoned medicine for art history. The support implicit in this analogy affirmed my happiness with the decision. This year, when I told Sarah about thinking of returning to medicine, she compared me to Felicity, who (as I was told) ultimately decided to go to medical school. And the comparison had the same effect on me as it did a year ago. That doesn’t mean that I made the wrong choice the first time. I don’t feel like I betrayed any part of who I am at either point in my life.


Unfinished Entry #2: Written sometime in the fall.

Jen recently mentioned something in her journal about the things that people value. I thought of it when I was sitting in chemistry the other day. Jacobsen was talking about how these three scientists, all of whom had won the Nobel Prize at some point in their lives, were debating over one particular Nobel Prize, because this particular Nobel Prize was “the big Nobel Prize” (“there are your everyday Nobel Prizes, and then there are your BIG Nobel Prizes.”) One of these scientists died, and after his death, one of the others basically said, “I don’t want any credit, but just for the record, you stole my idea and I deserve that Nobel Prize.” And the debate continues. Everyone else thought this anecdote was pretty amusing, and I guess it was (if only to hear Jacobsen talk about something other than electrons), but it got me thinking about how things that you spend your life working towards can so easily be trivialized—and sometimes, not even unfairly so. How much your self-perception and your self-worth can become dependent on things that have absolutely nothing to do with yourself. And mostly how human Harvard students are. I’ll admit that there are some quantitative ways to categorize and separate them from the rest of the population, but in the end, intelligence—especially as measured the way it is here—is just one factor among so many components that comprise a person. And people here are just as vulnerable and flawed as any I’ve met. They can be just as shallow, they can be just as petty—they can also be just as kind, just as compassionate. There are so many areas of intelligence, and singling people out for a certain kind doesn’t eliminate the endless other elements of who they are.


Unfinished Entry #3: Written shortly after first semester ended, in February.

This is more than a little delayed, but I think it’s been good to get some distance from the past year to really evaluate it. Actually, I can’t really think in terms of the entire year; people change so much from day to day that there is no way that I can assess a year’s worth of myself undergoing those significantly minute changes. I’m just thinking of the fall semester. It was a really, really good one, probably the best that I’ve had here, which is a little surprising because it was also the most academically stressful. But the past two years have really taught me a lot about how to approach and deal with classes here—particularly, my year away from pre-med courses ironically prepared me so well for handling organic chemistry. I’m proud of myself for braving the scary swarm of brilliant, obsessive-compulsive pre-meds (mostly, they only appear this way because they are anonymous to me). So that is one item on my list of things I am glad I did in 2004…

1) Loved organic chemistry in spite of the emphasis on curving, grading and competition. Only indulged in occasional bouts of stress. Maintained perspective. Received a grade lower than all my past grades here, but one that genuinely reflects my relative knowledge and effort, and thus one that I’m proud of. Learned a lot.

2) The fun we had this semester also counteracted the potential stress of my five classes. So: rarely sacrificed opportunities for out-of-the-ordinary-fun in favor of mundane work. Enjoyed tipsiness often. Danced on elevated surfaces, and with my girls. Laughed a lot.

3) Found my opposite, and stepped outside of my introversion enough to get to know him and let him get to know me. Stopped questioning and worrying and analyzing long enough to be purely and simply happy, and to make someone else purely and simply happy. Shared a lot.

4) Recognized and appreciated the fullness of these days, and those upcoming, without becoming too overwhelmed, and without forgetting to record them. Coming to terms with the necessity of growing up, without giving up on the possibility of retaining the past. Wrote a lot.

What difficult and lovely times.


Unfinished Entry #4: I have no idea when this was written.

Just for the record, there is a difference between informed optimism and blind idealism. The only reason to be optimistic in the first place is because you acknowledge that something's not right. Otherwise why would you need to hope that it will be all right later?


Unfinished Entry #5: This is an ongoing entry, but I realize that it would never end, and I haven't even begun to include everyone, but better now than never.

Lately I’ve been thinking about people who have not only had some kind of impact on me but have significantly changed me somehow.

The first and most obvious would be my brothers, except I’m not so sure that they have changed me as much as they have shaped me. So, we’ll leave it at that.

I think the first person who came after that is Hussain, around the time of junior high…maybe a bit later than that; though I’ve known him since elementary school I don’t think the change really happened until much later. He was the first person to show me how much friendship can really mean to a person. For some reason he appreciated my friendship more than anyone else I’d known. Up until then I’d measured the degree of friendship by time spent together, letters and notes written to one another, your choice of partner when doing projects, friendship bracelets and those kinds of immature things. And then here was this person who, despite how childish and unthinking and petty I could be, just genuinely liked me and wanted to be my friend, even after I left Hopkins. For no explicable reason. It sounds so generic and seems like it should be the basis of every friendship, but after all this time, I know how rare it is. We lost touch for awhile, and the closeness that proximity fostered when we were younger will probably never reappear in the same form. But now, when we talk, there’s no sense of a gap; it’s as though we’ve been talking continually even when we haven’t. We still argue incessantly, and there are still moments when the first person I think of wanting to talk to is him—someone I’ve only seen about four times over the last seven years. I have no idea why he still talks to me but I’m glad he does.

Then in high school came Victoria, Sarah and Richard. Victoria was the first best friend I had who, through no conscious effort on her part, inspired me to do and see certain things differently. Before I became close friends with her, a million little things annoyed and upset me, and throughout our friendship they continued to do so, and she knew all about it though she never complained. Just witnessing her genuine kindness and appreciation for everyone and everything changed a lot of that. She is also the most thoughtful person I know. She absorbs everything I tell her, even the mundane things. And that was the first time I realized how much it can mean to have someone remember those mundane things. There’s a depth of caring in that, that I don’t think I recognized or practiced before. Afterwards, I tried to emulate that in all my friendships, and I think it’s made a huge difference in how I connect with people. She also takes care of me, and she was the first friend I really felt that I took care of. Our friendship was probably the first where I admitted that friendship isn’t really about equal levels of independence; sometimes you are going to be dependent.

Sarah...Sarah keeps me sane by reminding us that we’re all insane. She knows the full extent of my neuroticism and she doesn’t care because she is so beyond neurotic herself. I can’t even describe our friendship, it’s so dysfunctional. Sarah was the first person, and still one of the few people, to whom I admit everything good, bad and ugly about myself. Complete and utter honesty. Insecurities, anxieties, self-loathing—she knows it all. I could tell her absolutely anything and she would take it without surprise. And having been typecast all my life for shyness and academics, it was and is indescribably amazing and liberating and inspiring to know someone who has so much faith in your complexity that she thinks anything is within your range of possibility.

Richard. In many ways Richard is the best person I know. How is it possible for a person to be so…good? There’s just no other word to describe him, really. It is a difficult feat to believe in every person’s goodness and yet still be able to make each person feel that their goodness is unique and valuable. To echo Victoria’s words, he makes you feel so loved.

In college, the collective group of people I’ve met have changed how I see people in the same way I suspect everyone changes in college. But I have to say that the one person that changed me most is Melkis. A girl who I may never have grown so close to if we hadn’t been semi-randomly placed in the same dorm room freshman year. Getting to know her has shown me the value of really, truly, honestly spending time understanding someone, how knowing someone absolutely fully, strengths and weaknesses, is so much more rewarding than knowing only the partial.


Unfinished Entry #6: Written last week

Reading over essays from high school, it’s easy to see how my writing has improved. As far as critical thinking goes, I’m not sure if what’s happened from then to now can exactly be called improvement. My claims in high school were very idealistic, very obvious statements that just happened to be expressed in unique, ingenious ways by amazing writers. Don’t be self-centered and materialistic, community is key, keep striving for equality, art can be a refuge from life. Now, things are more complicated, cliches have to be questioned—how to sustain a living without some kind of materialistic thought, how to prevent losing your individuality when thinking about others, is equality ever possible, what about the damaging effects of living through and for art? Concepts are more complex, more nuanced. The first thing I learned about writing at Harvard was to look for complications, for the strange—to then ask why and how—and to finally come to the conclusion that because that’s the way life is: inexplicable, incompatible, contradictory. But sometimes I think, is that really more valuable than a simple faith in the ideals I so naively argued for in high school? Maybe it’s more realistic, and I do believe in the worth of imperfections and paradoxes and pain, but not at the cost of the earlier innocence. It’s like how William Blake would sell his Songs of Innocence on its own, but he would only sell Songs of Experience with Songs of Innocence. Experience doesn’t negate innocence; it’s nothing without what came before.